Eaton Properties

Initial Business Response /* (1000, 7, 2015/08/03) */
Eaton properties is a management company and does not own any of the properties it manages. This tenant moved in on or about Sept. 29th 2014. When she moved in there were some mini blinds that the cleaning people should have replaced, and some...

other minor issues that were addressed at the time with new mini blinds and other minor repairs. There was a sewer back up which was called in and addressed back at the end of september. It did take two trips from the plumber, however sewer back ups happen and they are beyond our control all we can do is to send out a plumber. On April 27th the tenant called in a maintenance request stating that there were cracks in the foundation Since this building has no basement, if there are cracks in the slab, they would be normal and would not lead to problems, no mice were mentioned at this time. No maintenance person was dispatched. The tenant does not call back in again until June 19th and states that there are cracks in the foundation and they are causing mice to get in. This is the first time that mice were mentioned to us. We sent out a contractor who looked at the foundation cracks and addressed anything that needed to be addressed. We sent out a pest control company that placed traps and looked over the unit and said the could not see any entry point for the mice. However they got in, the traps are the only solution. I don't know what holes the tenant is refering to that the contractor we sent our could not find, and the pest control person could not find. Our lease states that mice are the responsibility of the tenant, and if she had set traps when she saw the first mouse, she could have prevented them herself. The owner in this case went ahead and paid for the pest control person to come and set traps. Regarding the spiders, the first time she sent a request about spiders was July 13th. The tenant had lived in the property for 9 months and in her complaint it sounds like we are forcing her to live in a spider infested home. we sent out a pest control person on July 17th. What more does she want. Again her lease clearly states that pest control is the tenants responsability. When you live in a home things happen, stuff breaks and all we can do is to attend to the issues as they arise. We cannot stop them from happening. I regret that this tenant has had numerous issues, however we have attended to each incedent as it has been brought to our attention.
Initial Consumer Rebuttal /* (1500, 9, 2015/08/03) */

Initial Business Response /* (1000, 10, 2015/09/03) */
All tenants are informed and required to call our maintenance line if they have maintenance items to be addressed. This tenant called and continued to call our office and the property manager's cell # of which each time had been instructed to...

call this in to the maintenance line. Once the tenant finally did call the maintenance line work orders were assigned to contractors. The plumbing issues were addressed several times but the tenant continued to complain about the toilet not working. Eaton Properties does not own these properties, they are owned by individual investors. We cannot do repairs on behalf of the owner if the owner does not have appropriate funds in their escrow account to be able to pay the contractors invoices. The owner delayed funding his escrow account but finally did and the plumbing repairs were resolved.
The unit was inspected for occupancy by tenant's payee Places for People and passed inspection so tenant was given occupancy to move in. Per our lease the tenant signs, any pest control is the responsibility of the tenants.
The tenant called and stated the a/c wouldn't work. We assigned to our HVAC tech and he informed us that it's not working because the a/c unit had been stolen. Owner purchased and paid contractor to install window a/c unit. The tenant wanted an additional a/c window unit which we allowed him to purchase with his own money and would reimburse him the cost when he submits a paid receipt. To date, tenant has not submitted that paid receipt.
The tenant has no confirmed knowledge of the status of the unit below him.
Tenant is wanting to be released from his lease and we are denying his request.

Initial Business Response /* (1000, 7, 2015/07/10) */
In response to the tenant complaint let me first say that we are a property management company and we do not own the properties that we manage. We are limited to what we can do by what our owners will authorize. In this particular case, the...

tenants viewed the property and noticed a wall that needed to be repaired and some other minor issues, however the inspector did not feel that these items posed a health or safety problem and the unit passed inspection. [redacted] notified the owner about the wall and the other items, and the owner decided that since it passed inspection they were not going to make the repair. The tenant was made aware of the owner's decision. We do not always agree with the decision of our owners. The tenant next states that several months later they notified maintenance and [redacted] that the ceiling in the basement was starting to fall. One of the services we provide for our tenants is an independent 24 hour answering service where a tenant can call in a maintenance request. Their request is dated, logged and either sent to a contractor, or the owner is notified if the owner wishes to handle his own repairs. We have audited our maintenance call line and have found no maintenance call from the tenant about a ceiling starting to fall. [redacted] also does not remember any conversations with the tenants regarding this issue prior to the reported incident. The first we were notified of the problem was when the tenant called the office to tell us that the ceiling had fallen. This call was noted in our office software system. Immediately after getting off the phone with the tenant [redacted] called the owner to apprise them of the situation. The owner wanted to use his own contractor to make the repair, and that contractor dealt directly with the owner and the tenant. Apparently the contractor did not clean up after making the repair and we received a maintenance call to send someone to clean up. We contacted the owner and he would not authorize us to send anyone. [redacted] contacted the owner to request his insurance information, they did not provide it to us.
This owner's management agreement ended in April and was not renewed. So we no longer manage for this owner and the tenant should be contacting the owner directly at this point with payment and maintenance requests and for the insurance information.
Initial Consumer Rebuttal /* (1500, 9, 2015/07/10) */

Initial Business Response /* (1000, 10, 2015/08/03) */
Since she has moved in this tenant has had more than the normal number of water issues. When the tenant has called in, we have in each case sent out plumbers to take care of the problem. We make every effort to stay on top of the contractors...

to make sure they are communicating with the tenant if there will be a delay, and we re-assign a job if the contractor does not attend to it in a timely manner. We received a maintenance call that a pipe was leaking in the basement. Our maintenance request did not state that it was water shooting everywhere. The tenant was smart to take a video of the problem, when we were able to see what was going on, we found that a back flow valve on the sump pump had broken and every time the sump pump kicked on water shot everywhere.
We sent out a plumber to fix the sump pump. When the sump pump is working correctly it will usually help with if not completely solve the basement wetness issues. This sump pump was obviously not working correctly, now that it is, there should be little or no water in the basement from now on. We also sent out a contractor to look at the foundation, and he could find no significant cracks or anyplace that bugs or snakes could come in.
I really don't know how the tenant can think that we don't care when we have sent out contractors every time they have called in a problem. With the massive amount of water the entire area has experienced this summer, the plumber are overwhelmed with calls, and it is taking a little longer to get the jobs scheduled.
Regarding the loss of personal items. I understand the frustration that this tenant has with the situation, however when the tenant signs their lease they are informed that we cannot guarantee that the basement will not leak, and if they store items in the basement they should store them off the ground or in plastic tubs. Also, they are highly encouraged to get renters insurance to cover their personal belongings.
Our property manager reports that he has had conversations with the tenant and the matter seems to have been resolved to her satisfaction.

We came to an agreement.  The company has paid all of the deposit back, $450.00.

Revdex.com:
I have reviewed the response made by the business in reference to complaint ID [redacted], and find that this resolution is satisfactory to me.
Sincerely,
[redacted]

Initial Business Response /* (1000, 7, 2015/09/01) */
Contact Name and Title: [redacted]
Contact Phone: XXX-XXX-XXXX
Contact Email: [redacted]@eatonproperties.com
Our maintenance dept received a request for a/c repair on or around Thurs 7/30/15 approx 9pm. The call was dispatched to our HVAC...

tech on Fri 7/31/15 approx 10:30am. The tenant called our office on Fri 7/31 and we gave her the HVAC tech's cell # to call and schedule repair appt. At that point it is between the tech and the tenant to schedule an appt together. Tenant called maintenance again on Fri 7/31 at 7:30pm instead of calling the HVAC tech's cell # that we provdided to her. Maintenance dept notified our office Mon 8/2 a.m. that the tenant called again. The property manager got in touch with the HVAC tech. He stated he tried setting an appt with tenant but she said she was not available. The appt was then set on 8/4 and repair was complete.
Our lease that the tenant signs and receives a copy of before move in states that bugs, spiders, etc treatment is the responsibility of the tenant.
The tenant requested to leave the property. Her lease ends on 9/30/15. After inspection of the unit it was found that the tenant has vacated the unit on or around 8/21/15, breaking her lease and leaving an unppaid balance of $675 which is her August 2015 rent.

This is a situation whereby we took over management from another Management Company ([redacted]s Management) that is currently under investigation by the MO Real Estate Commission.  When we took over management (2014), we determined thatt he air conditioning unit at the subject property was in need...

of replacement; we contacted the owner who agreed to install a new unit. We have available an independent 24 hour/7 day a week/365 day a year maintenance line our Tenants may call in to report maintenance issues.  We did receive a call complaining about mold in the bathroom; we sent a contractor to the property to assess the "mold" situation.  The contractor determined the fungi in the bathroom was from a buildup of soap sm which was tenant-caused from failing to properly clean.  The tenant received instructions from our staff on how to clean the fungi in the bathroom.  The contractor also reported to our office the home was so dirty that he had trouble performing his work.  He reported to us that there was a sewer backup in the basement for which the tenant had never submitted a maintenance request to our maintenance line.  In addition, the contractor stated there were numerous large black garbage bags all over the kitchen and basement which contained garbage.  Our office advised the Tenant (3/22/16) that he must immediately clean the home to an acceptable standard or we would be forced to report them to Child Services.  We worked with the tenant for several weeks until the situation was resolved and have not heard back from him until the air conditioner issue arose.  As previously mentioned, this unit was a newly installed unit in 2014.  Again, after receiving the request regarding the issue with the unit, we sent our contractor over who reported the condensing unit was burned up because the tenant failed to contact us right away and it ran repeatedly for over five days.  In addition, he also noted the unit was running without a filter.  We reported the circumstances to the owner to replace the unit and, because the damage to the air conditioner was tenant-caused, we determined we would assess the tenant an additional $50 per month (spread over 11 months) to cover the cost of repair.  We have further agreed to take the old unit back to the Supplier and, if there was a warranty, we would not assess the tenant any charges.  Regarding the sewer back (again not initially reported by the Tenant), we did snake out the drain and have never heard back from the Tenant that there are any issues related to any type of back up of water.